Engineers in Business Fellowship Donate £1.7m to Fund MBA Scholarships for Young Engineers

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Sainsbury Management Fellows MBA scholarship awardees ‘give back’ to help aspiring young engineers become business leaders and entrepreneurs.

For businessmen and women to be successful they need above all to understand the customers and the technology of their businesses, and this means that high-tech businesses need to be run by people with an engineering or scientific background.

London (PRWEB UK)2 November 2015

An initial £1.7 million has been donated by Engineers in Business Fellowship, which awards the Sainsbury Management Fellows MBA scholarship to professional young engineers who want to become entrepreneurs or business leadership in blue-chip companies.

Twenty-five years ago Lord Sainsbury of Turville had a vision to get more professional engineers onto UK boards and created the scholarship to help young engineers gain the necessary business skills and experience.

Today that vision is a reality - £7 million worth of Sainsbury Management Fellows scholarships have been awarded to over 300 graduates. The majority have gone on to fulfil their ambitions and hold board and c-level positions or senior consulting roles in blue-chip companies. Sixty beneficiaries are serial entrepreneurs with innovative businesses that employ over 18,000 people.

The £1.7 million has been donated by former awardees (known as SMFs) of the MBA scholarship, and from Lord Sainsbury, who is match funding all cash donations made by the SMFs for a period of five years.

Lord Sainsbury said: “Looking back at the original concept of the Sainsbury Management Fellows scholarship, it has proved its worth. The original idea behind the scheme was to attract into industry some of the best and brightest young engineers by enabling them to acquire the business skills which would help them rise quickly to the top of large British companies or set up their own high-tech businesses.

“I believe that for businessmen and women to be successful they need above all to understand the customers and the technology of their businesses, and this means that high-tech businesses need to be run by people with an engineering or scientific background. Top executives need to have financial and general management skills but these are no substitute for a knowledge of the technology,” concluded Lord Sainsbury.

SMF President, David Falzani said, “Engineers in Business Fellowship is aiming to raise a total of £10 million to enable us to continue awarding £300,000 worth of Sainsbury Management Fellows MBA scholarships to young engineers annually.”